She was driving much too recklessly, speeding heavily, she could barely see where she was going between the thick blanket of rain falling onto her windshield and the thin veil of tears blurring her vision as they burnt tracks down her face. She had finally done it. She had left the man she had been married to for the last thirty years. Now she simply wanted to put as much distance between herself and that house as she could.
She had truly loved him at first. They went to college together, running in many of the same circles, meeting at this party or that. She fell quickly for him once they started dating. They got married a few years out of college and had every illusion of a full, happy life ahead of them. Things had been great for the first few years. They had graduated about the same time and had both managed to gain great success in their respective fields. He was a lawyer and she went into business as a marketing specialist. Over the years he had begun to pick up a nasty drinking habit, sometimes hitting the bottle hard almost every night of the week. He would come home late, clumsily waking up half of the neighborhood as he shambled into their home and slammed the door. He was harmless at first but had been gradually getting more belligerent and violent with time.
It was 2am when he came home that night. He crashed through the front door, already shouting. He knocked over a vase on his way through their front hallway; the resulting crash was enough to make her jump out of bed. He stomped up the stairs and came stumbling through the threshold of their bedroom, curses flying through his lips. She had never seen him this bad before and it was frightening her more then a little. She backed away from him as he came towards her, screaming nonsense and seemingly talking to himself. He threw himself at her and swung his arms. She jumped out of the way and darted into the attached bathroom, screaming at him the whole way. She tried to close the door but wasn’t quite fast enough as he barreled into her, knocking them both to the ground. Just as he raised his hand to strike her, she saw a flicker of light on the sink that flashed a strange combination of colors before her make-up mirror came flying off of the edge, striking her husband on the back of the head and leading him to slump, unconscious, on top of her. It did not take her long to shift him off her, quickly get dressed, and rush out of the house, grabbing her keys on the way out.
She wiped the tears from her eyes as she remembered the events of tonight, willing them to leave her memory. She couldn’t get herself to forget about the flash of colors and the sudden launching of her mirror from the sink. It was driving her mad. She drove in silent contemplation for a while as she cleared her head, not entirely sure where she was going to go. Her sister traveled for work very frequently and was out of town for the next week or so. She had left her a key in case of emergencies, and she figured this counted well enough. She switched lanes and began heading towards her sister’s apartment.
She opened the door to the apartment, her shadow cast through the doorframe by the yellowed hallway light as it swung open. She quickly walked inside, flipping on a switch as she turned around, locking the door behind her. As she turned back around, she heard the muffled sound of a cork leaving a bottle. Tensing up, she reached down and grabbed one of the umbrellas from the stand near the door and began walking toward the kitchen, where the sound originated. She flicked the lights on to see one of the most peculiar things she had ever seen. There on the kitchen table stood a very small person with curly blonde hair and a very dark complexion, waving his hands through the air as if directing a symphony. Floating in front of him, wrapped in a band of light that was colored differently depending on how she looked at it, was a bottle of red wine, which was currently being poured into a wine glass. As she took all of this in, the tiny man glanced back at her as he finished pouring the wine into the glass.
“Thought you might like a glass of wine to calm down after the mess you’ve just been though. I figured I’d take the liberty.” He spoke in a voice that was both high pitched and accented lightly by a dialect she did not recognize. He smiled roguishly at her for a moment, waiting for the reply that did not manage to leave her lips before she fainted, cold, onto the floor. Multicolored bands quickly caught her and lowered her gently to the ground before she fell far. “Ah well. I suppose it needed to breathe anyways,” he chuckled lightly to himself. He floated down from the table and wrapped her in the light again, guiding her back into the living room and placing her gently onto the couch.
Her eyes fluttered gently open as the details of her surroundings came into focus. It took her a moment before the details of what happened came to her mind. She quickly sat up, quickly combing the room with her gaze to make sure she wasn’t just dreaming. Her eyes settled on the coffee table, more specifically, on the tiny man sitting on the coffee table, reading a book that was about triple his size. It took but a moment for him to notice her gaze. “Did you sleep well? I can’t imagine the couch could have been very comfortable, but you are pretty heavy to me, and it was the closest thing I could set you on that was better than the floor.” He gave her a sheepish smile. She didn’t respond, as she was too busy staring at him with her mouth half open in shock. He continued. “My name is Helios. What’s yours?”
This was apparently enough to break her of her stupor, and she gave a stuttering response. “A- Alice. My name is Alice. I’m sorry but who are you and what are you doing here?” She gestured to him on the table before continuing. “And how are you so small?”
He took a moment to respond, seemingly weighing the questions in his mind before answering. “I don’t quite know how to answer who I am. I suppose you could say I am similar to what your people call a faerie. I’ve no idea where that idea of wings came from though. I have been watching over you for quite a while.” He trailed off as he looked away from her, eyes brimming with unspoken emotion and pain. “I have seen your husband,” he nearly spat the word, “become worse and worse with time and I have been unable to do anything to stop it. My people are not really allowed to impose into the lives of the larger folks.” He looked up at her defiantly. “I wasn’t going to just sit there and let him hit you though. I had to do something.” He waved his hand and the glass of wine he had poured her earlier came floating out of the kitchen where he had left it and into Alice’s hand. He pulled a flask out of his jacket and raised it towards her in a mock toast. “To your health,” he said with a devilish grin. He took a big drag out of the flash before she raised the glass to her lips. She took a small sip that turned into a bit more and before she knew it, she had drained half the glass. She looked down at him and the tension finally started to leave her with the surreal nature of her current situation. They continued to talk about both of their lives as they both dove deeper into the alcohol they were drinking. Alice had long since abandoned her glass and began drinking straight from the bottle. As the night went on, and their intoxication increased, they became more and more comfortable with each other. The hours faded as they talked and got more drunk. Tears were shed. Bottles were depleted. They greeted the sunrise before they finally ended up passing out.
They spent the next few days in that apartment together, drinking, laughing, crying, and talking about life. Alice ordered takeout for them most nights and they just ignored the world as they ate and drank. Late one night, after the two of them had finished dinner, Helios was joking around, trying to make her laugh. He had floated up to the brim of her wine glass and started walking along the edge. He quickly slipped and fell in with a splash. After he surfaced in the red wine, curly blonde hair plastered to his forehead colored almost purple, neither of them could stop laughing. After a moment, Alice gained a mischievous glint in her eye and picked up the glass, jostling Helios around inside. She brought the glass to her lips and took a sip, savoring the taste before finally exclaiming “Now that was a very full-bodied wine!” She managed to hold a straight face for all of five seconds before bursting out in laughter. Helios just looked at her with an eyebrow raised, obviously trying to hold back a smile.
“We’re doing puns now, are we? You know, I think you may have enjoyed that me-flavored wine a little too much! Your cheeks are looking a little Rosé!” Helios did not last a second before cracking a grin and cackling loudly. He laughed so hard that he didn’t even see her lips coming towards him. She pushed her lips into him, pushing his back into the rim of the glass. Her lips covered him from head to chest. Helios hesitated for a moment before giving in and pushing back against her, spreading his arms wide as her embraced her lips. Alice began to feel a tiny tongue running along her lips. She deepened the kiss, parting her lips with a sigh and running her tongue over his tiny form. She let out a little satisfied sigh as she pulled away.
“We should probably get you out of those wet clothes. You must be pretty cold…” She helped him out of the glass and onto the table, quickly helping him out of his clothing, trying hard not to rip anything. Just as he finished shedding the layers, he was pushed onto his back on the table as she pressed her lips back over him. She did not hesitate this time and quickly began running her tongue along his body, licking up all the leftover wine on his body as she went. Before too long she began to focus her attentions between his legs. Helios let out a breathy gasp as she worked the tip of her tongue over him. She slid her hand under his body, lifting him up as she slid him into her mouth, twirling her tongue around everything she could reach. Helios moaned unabashedly as she worked him over, doing his best to kiss her lips as she sucked on his lower half. Unable to hold out under this relentless assault, Helios came. She felt his body writhe in pleasure inside of her mouth, teasing his sensitive body a little more before she let him rest. She pulled him out of her mouth and let him lie, exhausted in her palm. She grinned down at him with a fire in her eyes. “You seem to have enjoyed yourself, I think it’s my turn now.”